


The Best You've Hoped For

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [13]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7355923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard+/any, I can't control my destiny. I trust my soul, my only goal is just to be. (RENT, Jonathan Larson)."</p><p>Cam Mitchell on John Sheppard, and the origins of the Snakeskinners and the Space Monkeys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best You've Hoped For

Cam and John sat on the roof of the venue, sharing a drink while the crew scrambled to break everything down and put it away. None of the Space Monkeys were particularly hardcore partiers, tended never to have more than a couple of drinks on the nights one or both bands was entertaining fans, but these days, John stuck to water. Cam wondered if it was some kind of new ascetic thing, the shaved head and healthy food and endless vitamins John took, to counteract the potential sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll lifestyle. Truth be told, none of them were particularly rock’n’roll offstage, and there were no drugs. Cam liked a good party as much as the next guy, but there were some lines he refused to cross.  
  
“So, was this your dream, growing up? Hardcore superstar?” Cam took a sip of his beer.  
  
John dragged his wrist across his forehead; his hair was damp and spikier than ever. “No. Wanted to join the Air Force, actually. Did the JROTC thing in high school till I blew out my knee running track.”  
  
Cam hummed thoughtfully. “My daddy was in the Air Force. Test pilot. Lost both his legs. The Mitchells are a long, proud line of military service. My brother Ash went to the Academy. And then there’s me.”  
  
“I always wanted to fly.”  
  
“I was always afraid I’d crash. Singing, though. It makes me feel like I’m flying. That first moment when you step onto the stage, and the sound of the audience washes over you, scoops you up and flings you into the air? Nothing like it.”  
  
John cast him a sideways glance. “There’s a reason you write the lyrics, I see.”  
  
“Vala would tell you the reason is that I’m a sappy country boy.” Cam studied John’s profile. “You could get a pilot’s license, you know.”  
  
“Yeah. But I just - I never wanted to be a commercial pilot. Bus drivers of the sky. And besides, I always liked choppers. But that didn’t happen.”  
  
“So you just fell into being a rock star.”  
  
“Not really a rock star. I’m no Cameron Mitchell.” John waggled his eyebrows, and Cam rolled his eyes. “I just want to - to _be_ , I guess. Music makes me feel alive.”  
  
Cam nodded. “I get that.”  
  
“I’m sure you do.”  
  
“Being a rock star isn’t your dream, then? You think you’ll wake up one morning and want something else? That you could just walk away from all this?” He gestured expansively at everything below them - the tour buses, the trucks to haul all the equipment.  
  
John stared out at the night, unseeing. “No.”  
  
“But you walked away from the band when you were sixteen. At least, that’s what Rodney said.”  
  
John winced. That little detail hadn’t made it into the interviews, print or otherwise.  
  
“I wasn’t even supposed to be a Space Monkey permanently,” John said. “Ronon came by my work, asked me to fill in because their old guitarist, Aiden, had up and enlisted in the Marines. They needed me to cover their gigs while they auditioned a permanent guitarist. All of us were in school, so they didn’t play as many gigs during the school year, but summer was coming and - I said yes. For old times’ sake. And Woolsey was there that night.”  
  
“Sounds like destiny.”  
  
“Maybe. But I guess he liked the band with me in it, and they convinced me to stick around.” John stared down at his hands, fiddling with the twist cap on his water bottle.  
  
“You really did fall into being a rock star.” Cam laughed quietly.  
  
John glanced at him. “What about you? I mean, I was never the type to fanboy over a band. I mean, sure, your music is awesome. You just - showed up on my radio one time and never left, but I never went crazy trying to learn your favorite color or whatever.”

“It’s all Vala’s fault, really,” Cam said. “She was a bouncer at this bar where I was working as a bar back.”  
  
John raised his eyebrows. “Vala was a bouncer? Wait, no, I’m friends with Teyla. That’s not strange at all. Go on.”  
  
“I was working my way through school, just like you, and Vala was drifting from job to job, and the bar had open mic night, and she’d arranged to play her guitar, and her singer - some guy named Tomin, she still curses his name - bailed on her, and she went around begging for someone to help her, and because I was stupid, I gave in.” Cam liked Vala. Not like a sister, not like a lover, but they were friends. Good friends. Best friends. “And the crowd liked us. Actually liked us. When they cheered, I got a taste of that rush, but Vala was pretty set on keeping on with Tomin. It took some convincing, but after I rounded up Hailey and Grace and Amelia, Vala came around, and here we are. The Snakeskinners.”  
  
“How’d you come up with the name ‘Snakeskinners’?” John asked.  
  
Cam winced. “Well, it might have involved a whole lot of snake bites one night while we were trying to think up names.”  
  
John threw his head back and laughed.  
  
Cam nudged John’s shoulder with his. “Like Space Monkeys is any better.”  
  
“We were freshmen in high school,” John said. “And we always talked about changing it, making it something cooler, but we never did, and it kinda stuck.”  
  
“Whose idea was Space Monkeys, anyway?”  
  
“Well, it wasn’t an idea so much as an insult,” John said. “We were goofing around in the music room after school one day, and we couldn’t quite get on beat for Give It Away - we played pretty much only covers back then - and Rodney said we sounded as clumsy as a herd of monkeys tumbling through outer space, and he wouldn’t even grace us with the worst song he’d ever written, because it was too good for us, so I said, ‘Well, then just call us the Space Monkeys’, and here we are.”  
  
“Why doesn’t Rodney play? He’s obviously got talent - he’s a great songwriter.” Cam wondered if he was treading on dangerous ground, but John just shrugged.  
  
“You’d have to ask him.”  
  
“He’s definitely part of the band, though.”  
  
“He’s what makes us sound good, in more ways than one.”  
  
Cam nodded, but Richard Woolsey had been right. There was something about John Sheppard, the way he played, the way he poured out his heart onstage, that was magic. Maybe Rodney McKay helped the Space Monkeys sound good - his songs were catchy, eclectic, but demanded high-level musicianship from the whole band - but John Sheppard was what helped the band sound great. He certainly helped them look great, too.  
  
Elizabeth Weir was working her magic, polishing the rough edges off the garage band, turning them into professional artists, but they had a ways to go. Cam could see the angle Elizabeth was taking with the band, too, touting Teyla as the band leader - sexy woman, rare female drummer, the backbone of the song but also one of the lead voices - and Jennifer as her sweet, friendly lieutenant, with Ronon as the brooding and laconic bassist and John as the charming but mysterious guitarist.  
  
Cam wondered what other mysteries were behind John’s bright eyes. When the stage door opened and Rodney and Jennifer stumbled out, laughing intimately and trading kisses, Cam saw the shadows descend in John’s eyes, and he had a feeling he knew what John might be hiding.


End file.
